If You Aim at Nothing…

I love setting goals. I love the challenge of trying to attain a goal that I have set for myself…or even better, a goal that has been set for me by a coach or a supervisor or a peer. I love competing with myself and my own performance to try to do more than I did the year before. It is this part of me that made me a very effective church planter…it is this part of me that made me a very toxic church planter.

I had this drive to plant a church. I had a marketing plan. I had an assimilation plan. I had a strategy for leadership development. I had certain benchmarks I felt like we should be hitting at the end of year one…year two…year three. I had it all figured out. What I didn’t have was goals to develop my marriage. I didn’t have goals to grow as a father. I didn’t have goals to deepen my relationship with God. Somehow, I thought those relationships, the ones most important to me, would develop on their own, would grow without being intentional, would drift toward health and purpose. What I realized in a very painful way is this truth: If you aim at nothing, you hit it every time.

Over the next few weeks, Trisha and I will be spending time praying and talking about our goals for 2010. We will talk about personal goals, marital goals, goals we want to achieve as parents, financial goals and goals that we feel God has given us to pursue spiritually. We will come together (usually over dinner on a date night) and share the goals and dreams we have for this next year, then discuss action steps we need to take or put in place to accomplish the goals we have.

For instance, one of our financial goals for 2010 is to be credit card and medical bill debt free by the end of 2010. That goal won’t be achieved easily and it won’t be achieved on accident. We need to have a plan to get there. Last year we set a spiritual goal of reading through the Bible together over the course of a year. So each day we would spend time either in the morning or evening reading through the One Year Bible. A few years ago we set a goal of reading certain books together…so we would spend time before we went to bed reading together. One of Trisha’s personal goals for 2010 is to run a mini-marathon (I am still praying about whether or not this goal has to apply to me). A mini-marathon doesn’t just happen…you have to have a plan to achieve that. Growing in this one area has revolutionized our family!

What is true in business and what is true in sports and what is true in church growth is so true in your marriage and in relationships. If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. What if you were as intentional about growing in your marriage as you are about advancing your career? What if you had laser like focus as a parent like you do when you have a project to accomplish at work? What if you were as committed to growing in your relationship with God this next year as you are growing your 401k? How much more joy and intimacy could we experience in our lives, relationships and marriages if we were more committed to being intentional?

Are you a goal setter? Do you set goals for your marriage, relationships, spiritual life? Would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.